


(in)substantial

by wyverning



Series: kinktober 2020 [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Banter, Dirty Talk, Explicit Sexual Content, Flirting, Haunted Houses, Humor, Kinktober 2020, M/M, Orgasm Denial, borderline crack treated seriously, ghost!neil, ghostfucking, happy halloween month, he's technically dead but that doesn't stop him, major character death just to be safe, nippleplay, softer versions of andreil than in canon, supernatural ghost shenanigans, vague mentions of andrew's trauma, very lighthearted please do not be off-put by the ghost tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:36:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyverning/pseuds/wyverning
Summary: A flicker of movement catches his attention, and he watches as one of his kitchen knives slides itself out of the wooden block and hovers ominously over the marble island. It’s not even a steak knife, but one of the smaller, thinner ones, meant to cut fruit or something.“Is that supposed to be scary,” Andrew asks the ghost.The knife bobs up and down in the air, like a nod.Andrew considers it for a moment, considers the last time he felt even an ounce of true fear, when his words meant nothing and all he could hold close were boundaries that no one deigned to respect.“Eh,” he says, waving his hand in a see-saw, so-so motion.—Or, Andrew moves into a supposedly-haunted house, and ends up saddled with a ghost named Neil.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: kinktober 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946149
Comments: 10
Kudos: 214





	(in)substantial

**Author's Note:**

> day 3: **dirty talk** | face fucking | shibari | sex toys
> 
> day 4: human furniture | **orgasm denial** | gags | body-swap
> 
> day 5: handjobs | **nipple play** | suspension play | power differential
> 
> okay. well. so. this weekend was super packed for me re: work and school stuff. hooray trying to teach in the pandemic while also being enrolled in a master’s program. as a result, i’ve combined kinks from the past three days into this monster (heh) of a fic. happy halloween month, you get ghosts and really kinky fucking as a result. the premise was just too fun to do a quick jerk-off and run fic lmaooo so i hope y'all enjoy it! the pacing of this is probably super wack because i kept upping the word count and thinking to myself, in a complete panic, “BUT WHERE IS THE PORN!!!!” sorry i am such a disaster.

Andrew moves into the house _because_ it's haunted.

He doesn't truly believe in anything of the sort, of course. There are plenty of monsters that already exist on the planet, and they certainly don't need to be supernatural to be real. No, it's their humanity that makes them _truly_ monstrous. And Andrew’s hoping that moving into a house with such notoriety will serve its purpose of having everyone leave him the fuck alone.

So, despite the leasing agent sweating and laughing nervously as she’d showed him around the place, offhandedly mentioning that _it's a great deal_ and _you’d be a perfect tenant_ and _nevermind the reputation this place has, it’s unwarranted for such a_ wonderful _location,_ he signs the papers and puts a deposit down and ends up living in the Haunted House of Palmetto.

It’s a test, Andrew knows. He just isn’t sure if it’s for him or the house itself.

Given the rumors that fly, Andrew expects the place to be drafty, to have some old pipes in the walls that moan and creak ominously. Instead, nothing of the sort happens, at least at first. He moves all of his shit into the new place fairly quickly. Nicky doesn’t seem too upset about Andrew vacating his former home — probably something to do with his imminent plans to move back to Germany — and he doesn’t really have all that much to begin with. It takes two days, a rented Uhaul truck, and a handful of garage sales for him to fill up the empty space with secondhand furniture.

There’s something satisfying, when all is said and done, about having a space entirely to himself. Andrew will have to figure out a way to tell Bee that she was right without admitting to the fact that he sleeps soundly the first night he settles into bed in his new room.

Nothing of note happens the first week. Despite his initial first restful night in the house, Andrew’s sleep schedule is shit on the best of days, so he’s awake at almost all hours, and there are no ghosts or demons hanging around that terrorize him. Silence greets him whenever he shuffles around, haphazardly making a cup of coffee or ordering takeout, and he wonders how the hell anyone could think this house is anything but empty.

(“Hey,” he even says once during the twilight hours. “Come on. Show yourself. I could take you.” It’s possible that the whiskey settling in his gut is why he does it in the first place, but regardless, no incorporeal demons accept his challenge.)

The first indicator that _maybe_ the rumors are real happens when Andrew leaves a pack of cigarettes and his lighter resting on the kitchen counter. He passes out on the couch he’d nabbed for $40 at an estate sale for an hour, and wakes up to the smell of smoke. In his drowsed state, Andrew assumes it’s just his clothing, smoke clinging to him from his last cigarette break, but then he notices that the acrid smell is sharp and present, like someone lit up right next to him. He sits up, and sure enough, there’s a single cigarette sticking out of the now-opened box (Andrew _knows_ it’d been closed when he’d last set it down) and its edges are blackened, like someone had tried to light it and failed at keeping the cherry hot.

Hm.

* * *

Living alone is new — he’s never had the luxury before — and Andrew finds himself… liking it. It’s not something he’d expected, moving away from the only anchors who had given him a reason to slog through daily life, but Nicky’s fulfilled his obligation of raising Andrew and Aaron to adulthood, and though neither one of them is particularly _successful,_ Andrew has no interest in watching over someone who wants to be rid of him. Kevin’s gone, graduated and playing professionally and doing everything he can to forget the fact that he couldn’t keep his promise, just like Andrew always knew he wouldn't be able to.

And Aaron is — Aaron.

Not Andrew’s responsibility, anymore; that much is clear.

So.

He’s on his own. 

Or — 

Maybe Andrew’s not _so_ alone. He’s still not convinced that there’s some sort of creature haunting the house, though there had been a handprint on the bathroom this morning that Andrew certainly hadn’t caused.

It’s always possible that the solitude is driving him insane, though. He never expected to live past twenty, so every day that he manages to wake up could merely be one day closer to losing it entirely.

* * *

Little things start to catch Andrew’s notice. His memory is flawless, something that has never done him any favors in the past, and he’s positive that his stuff is moving around as though by an unseen hand. A cup is displaced, his toothbrush ends up flipped upside-down, and if he withdraws his cigarette pack from his jacket pocket, it never seems to stay in the same place.

He hasn’t told anyone about the house’s reputation, and isn’t quite sure what Bee would say during one of their sessions if he tried to bring it up. 

Anyway, whoever — or whatever — is moving his shit doesn’t seem to have malicious intentions. It’s irritating when Andrew can’t find something that he’s looking for, but he spends most of his days annoyed at the world, anyway, so it’s hardly like anything has changed.

* * *

Andrew slams the front door shut, frustrated. He’d thought that hook-ups with Roland were — well, not a _good_ idea, but at least something he could bear. But having to tell someone more than once to follow directions means that getting off becomes more of an ordeal than it’s worth. Hence: frustration. Hence: slamming the front door shut.

Except the door squeaks back open. 

He stares at it, willing it to be a phantom vision, but even the frame, embedded in the wall, remains as unchanging as ever. The door is, against all odds, open.

Slowly, deliberately, Andrew slams it shut again.

A heartbeat passes, and he watches the knob rattle before the door pushes open for the second time.

What the fuck. 

“Is this a joke?” he says aloud, squinting at the door. Predictably, there’s no response. The door does not move again, even though Andrew tries slamming it twice more. Aaron would call it testing a hypothesis, or some scientific bullshit.

But the fact remains: the door does not open on its own again.

Well.

Apparently, his house is haunted.

* * *

The awareness that ghosts are real doesn’t cause any sort of paradigm shift for Andrew. He’d thought, maybe, that the confirmation of his door opening and closing on its own would be a startling realization about the truth of the world around him, but frankly, Andrew just doesn’t care all that much. If anything, it’s further justification for his self-imposed isolation. Nobody will bother him, and if they try, he can sic his ghost/demon/whatever’s haunting the house on them.

He brings it up to Bee, just the once: “Do you believe in the supernatural?”

“An interesting question,” Bee says evenly, as always. She seems to take pride in remaining unshocked by anything her patients do or say, and Andrew wonders if she’d have a different reaction if he started ranting and raving about supernatural creatures. “It’s not really something I’ve given much thought to — there’s far too much to learn about when it comes to humans, let alone things we may not understand. What about you?”

Andrew sucks on his teeth and says, “Starting to think anything’s possible, Bee.”

* * *

“Hey.”

The word is so quiet that Andrew barely registers it, but he does. He sweeps his gaze around the living room, trying to find the source of the noise. There’s nothing out of sorts: his cups have stayed in the same place for the past day, half-empty glasses of water sporadically set down and abandoned. Even his cigarettes haven’t moved from the coffee table he’d placed them on.

With the living room cleared, Andrew turns toward the kitchen; it’s the only other place he hasn’t checked other than the rooms. A flicker of movement catches his attention, and he watches as one of his kitchen knives slides itself out of the wooden block and hovers ominously over the marble island. It’s not even a steak knife, but one of the smaller, thinner ones, meant to cut fruit or something.

“Is that supposed to be scary,” Andrew asks the ghost. 

The knife bobs up and down in the air, like a nod. 

Andrew considers it for a moment, considers the last time he felt even an ounce of true fear, when his words meant nothing and all he could hold close were boundaries that no one deigned to respect.

“Eh,” he says, waving his hand in a see-saw, so-so motion. 

* * *

The ghost is sitting on Andrew’s bed.

It’s fairly annoying, all things considered. Andrew finally feels tired enough to sleep, an infrequent, irregular thing, and there’s a fucking ghost sitting on his bed.

Possibly his brain is broken. This is the sort of thing those horror movies that Nicky hates to love are about: creepy monsters invading your personal space, haunting you until you’re driven insane. Taking over your home and privacy until you have nothing left.

Well. Andrew’s had enough of that, and a glowing orb of dead energy sure as shit isn’t going to stop him from succumbing to the rare tug of exhaustion his body hardly ever acquiesces to.

“Go away,” Andrew says, tossing an old t-shirt he’d snagged from the laundry basket at his bed.

There’s an indignant squawk, and then the light dissipates.

* * *

“You really aren’t afraid of me.”

It’s probably a sad truth of Andrew’s life that he isn’t even startled by the ghost’s presence, or the fact that it can apparently speak. His arms prickle with goosebumps, some sort of biological response to the electrical energies of a fucking ghost or some shit, but he just shrugs in what could be taken as agreement. “You aren’t very scary.”

“That’s not true,” the ghost says. It sounds close and yet far away, all at the same time. The timbre of its voice isn’t audible enough to pin down a gender or anything close to an identity, other than that it’s an incorporeal voice talking to him.

Andrew holds up his fingers in the air to count off the ghost’s crimes. He has no idea whether he’s facing the ghost or not, or if something like that even matters. “You steal my cigarettes, open and close my doors at random, and flip my toothbrush so it’s upside-down in the cup. I guess the knife thing could be considered scary, except I bought that shitty set from Target and couldn’t hurt someone with it if I tried.”

The ghost very nearly sounds indignant. “Hey! I’ll have you know that those are very creepy. I’ve scared off at least six people doing that.”

“You’ll have to try harder, then,” Andrew says, which is probably a very stupid thing to say. Taunting a supernatural creature probably ranks among his less intelligent decisions, but the ghost is the most interesting thing to happen to him in years.

Can’t blame him for trying to encourage it.

* * *

“What are you,” Andrew asks the next time he can feel the ghost hanging around. He’s drinking whiskey straight from the handle — the perks of being an adult living in your own place. Nobody to shame you for feeling too lazy to grab a cup.

Well, nobody except your supernatural roommate.

“Rude,” the ghost says. It’s not visible today like it has been before in the past, but there’s some sort of tickle in Andrew’s hindbrain that signals he’s not _completely_ alone.

Andrew sighs before taking a long pull from the bottle. _“Who_ are you?”

“Hmm,” the ghost says. “I feel like I’d need your alcohol to get through an explanation of that.”

Without a word, Andrew offers up the bottle. A quiet laugh meets his ears, and then there’s the soft displacement of air like the ghost’s actually taking him up on the proposition. Nothing happens, of course, and Andrew’s hands remain firmly on the now-warm glass of the bottle’s neck.

The ghost sighs. “I can’t always interact with things, but it’d be nice. My name, though… Hm. You can call me Neil.”

“Neil,” Andrew says, trying the name out in his mouth. It feels odd. It feels right. “I’m Andrew.”

“I know,” the ghost — Neil — says softly. 

* * *

It’s a bad day. It’s been a bad day since the moment he woke, caught up in the throes of a nightmare and fighting the urge to crawl out of his own skin. Andrew often spends his bad days doing repetitive things to remind himself that he still can, like chain-smoking a pack or baking a hundred cookies. Today, he needs to feel clean.

“Huh,” Neil says. It’s not a bad day for Neil: there’s a slightly visible, tangible glow in the bathroom as Andrew cranks the knob as hot as it will go. “Do people really shower as often as you do? Isn’t this like, the third time today?”

“I moved here to get away from people,” Andrew says, “not deal with nosy busybodies.”

“Well, you’re the one who willingly moved into a haunted house. Not sure what you expected.” As steam fills the small bathroom, Neil starts to doodle on the fogged-up mirror.

Andrew needs to take his clothes off. He is not, however, going to take his clothes off while a ghost haunts his toilet. “I expected nothing.”

“And that’s what you got!” Neil says. “I don’t think I ever even existed on legal records.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you’re—” Neil starts, but Andrew will never know what he apparently is, because Neil vanishes at that moment. Whether or not it’s something the ghost chose to do, the slight crackle of energy that indicates his presence vanishes. In the hot, humid air of the bathroom, Andrew waits to see if he’ll return.

When it becomes clear that Neil’s gone for good, he slips his armbands off and tugs his shirt over his head to take a _totally reasonable_ third shower of the day.

* * *

He’s not quite sure what’s happening, but there’s something growing slowly more powerful about Neil’s presence. Andrew stays up far too late researching ghosts and supernatural entities as best as he can, but most of it is a crock of bullshit. There is, however, the empirical evidence of Neil’s existence: while he’d begun as a minor nuisance, shifting the locations of Andrew’s possessions, now he is capable of speaking and intentionally interacting with things and even maintaining a vaguely corporeal form.

“Check this out,” Neil says after requesting a pen and some paper. Andrew dutifully delivers some printer paper and a thick sharpie to the kitchen countertop, pretending to be disinterested.

Neil — well, presumably Neil, he’s not visible today — picks up the sharpie. In a careful, shaky hand, Neil spells out S-P-O-O-K-Y on the paper. The sharpie drops unceremoniously to the ground right as he finishes the Y.

“Very impressive,” Andrew says, deadpan. “This is the final straw: I’m terrified.”

“Well _I’m_ proud of it,” Neil retorts. The sharpie rises abruptly in the air and launches itself at Andrew. 

He sidesteps the projectile easily, but this _is_ a breakthrough: if Neil can tangibly interact with objects for extended periods of time, what else is he capable of? 

“Have you ever been able to do that before?”

“No,” Neil says after a moment. “With everyone else, it was like… short bursts. Almost like adrenaline. It’d kick my ass after, though, and would take ages to come back.”

Andrew contemplates that information. “So you’re getting stronger.”

“Soon, I shall be unstoppable,” Neil agrees.

* * *

Andrew’s been sleeping better. He wakes up one morning and rolls over to check his phone, surprised to see that he’s managed to sleep in until 9 o’clock. Insomnia is almost never a kind bed partner, and he wonders, idly, if this is somehow Neil’s doing. If Neil’s ability to stick around for longer and longer periods of time has anything to do with Andrew’s restlessness putting itself on the back burner.

It’s a strange thought, but no less strange than the idea that Andrew’s actually grown _comfortable_ sharing this house with a spirit he knows nearly nothing about.

He shuffles around his bed restlessly, feeling the stirrings of arousal in his gut. Sex isn’t often something Andrew allows for himself: even under tightly-controlled circumstances, there’s a huge risk, and anyway he’s been too tired lately to do more than entertain the thought.

But now, feeling well-rested and comfortable in his bed, he reconsiders, the light brush of his fingers playing on the soft skin of his abdomen. He figures, why not. There’s no one around to judge him. No nosy family members to hide it from.

He doesn’t even need to close his bedroom door.

Decision made, Andrew lets out a quiet breath that feels a bit like relief. He doesn’t bother to take his time, though, sliding his hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and gripping his cock firmly. There’s nothing graceful about the way he jerks off: it’s solely for the release of pressure and the quick rush of endorphins that orgasming will bring.

Andrew keeps his mind carefully blank as he touches himself, and only slips up once as he considers what it would be like to do this with someone who actually knew him.

* * *

“What’s it like when you’re gone?” Andrew asks. Bee would jump for joy if she could see him now: caring enough about something to ask _conversational questions._

“It’s hard to explain.” Neil brushes up against him, not-quite-touching him but also not- _not-_ touching him. “It’s kind of like when you fall asleep? You’re still _there,_ but also not.”

Andrew hums in response. He feels tired, lazy, content in a way that’s unfamiliar and fairly startling. “And how’d you end up here?”

Neil doesn’t respond. At first, Andrew thinks he’s just mulling over his words, the way he often does, but the silence stretches on for too long, and he realizes that Neil’s vanished. The contentment drifting through him disappears like it had never really been there to start.

* * *

Neil doesn’t come back.

At first, Andrew doesn’t even notice. Neil’s appearances are sporadic at best, short-lived encounters that vary depending on how much energy he exerts. Talking doesn’t take as much out of him as interacting with and touching objects does, but Andrew’s used to him vanishing for a day or two.

It’s the third day when he notices the absence of Neil’s presence. He’s not sure what it means, but he _does_ recall the last question he’d asked Neil, and wonders if the disappearance is an intentional reaction to it.

Or maybe his mind had made up being haunted all-together, and this is some sort of cognitive reset. Surprise, your house is empty except for you.

 _How’s the new place?_ Nicky asks him via text, followed by four other texts that absolutely could have been sent at the same time. _Miss you in Columbia! Oh, also, are you lonely? A coworker has a litter of kittens she’s trying to adopt out. They’re super cute._

It’s a stupid idea: since when does Andrew actually _listen_ to Nicky’s suggestions?

Still, he gets the cat, if only because the attached photo shows off how little and pathetic the runt of the litter is. Andrew ends up with a little black furball he refuses to name, ten pounds of cat litter, and a ghostless household.

* * *

The cat goes batshit one day. Andrew’s on the couch with it while it kneads into one of his blankets, purring so loud he’s sure the neighbors can hear. One minute, things are quiet and peaceful as he scrolls idly through his phone, and the next, the kitten’s bolting around the living room, meowing excitedly and extendedly like its life depends on it.

 _What the fuck_ , Andrew thinks, but before he can do much else, he hears, “Oh, who’s this?”

Neil’s voice does something bizarre to Andrew: the tense line of his shoulders, so familiar he’d hardly paused to consciously note it, eases. 

“You’re back,” he says carefully. Just a statement, with no particular inflection to show how little Andrew’s slept since he realized what had happened.

Neil looks up, and that’s — something. He almost looks like a real person. Andrew can recognize the faint outline of eyes set into a vaguely-shaped face, and though they’re translucent, they seem piercing.

“And you replaced me, I see,” Neil responds with a certain kind of lightness that is just as calculated as Andrew’s own tone.

“Better company,” Andrew says, gesturing toward the cat. It is now chirping and pawing excitedly at Neil’s ambiguous form, and he feels the insane urge to smile at the sight.

“I see how it is,” Neil says, though he seems delighted by the cat’s attention. He moves around the living room with ease as the kitten chases after him, a black little blur against the floor.

Andrew sleeps well that night.

* * *

_There’s a redhead staring at him from across the room._

_Andrew had clocked him the moment he’d walked in, but he doesn’t mind biding his time. The alcohol he sips is sharp on his tongue, and he enjoys the taste, scoping out any other potential fucks for the evening._

_Roland used to call it_ prowling.

_It’s not even a surprise when the man finally musters the courage to approach Andrew, and he wastes no time, hooking a finger in the guy’s collar and steering him toward the employee break room of the club._

_“Hands at your sides,” he says, shoving the redhead against the wall. “Don’t touch me.”_

_The redhead has a glint in his eye as he nods compliance, and Andrew doesn’t hesitate to drop to his knees._

_“Fuck,” the redhead says, and his head hits the wall with a satisfying_ thunk. _Andrew cares little for finesse, pointedly unzipping the guy’s jeans and pulling his cock out._

_There’s something so satisfyingly simple about the weight of a dick in your mouth. It’s good when the body it’s attached to can manage to listen for more than a few minutes, and Andrew savors the salty taste of precum on his tongue._

_This is humanity, narrowed down to a pinpoint: just creatures fighting to the death for a quick fuck._

_The redhead comes quickly, and it’s only as Andrew’s swallowing that he notices the sharp crisscrossing of scars riddling the visible sliver of his torso. Each mark tells a different story, and as the man slumps against the wall, Andrew stifles the bizarre urge to touch them._

_“Are you here often?” Andrew asks, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. The redhead had followed directions well, and he wouldn’t mind a repeat of this._

_“Not really,” the redhead says, shooting him a sharp smile that’s as vicious as it is wistful. “But I’ll be here if you need me. Just ask for Neil.”_

Andrew wakes suddenly, heart pounding a ferocious drumbeat against his sternum, with an uncomfortable wetness in his boxers and thinks, _Fuck._

* * *

“You need to name the cat.”

“I’m not going to name the cat.”

“He’s three months old now! I’m actually not sure if that’s right at all, but it sure sounded like I knew what I was talking about, right?”

“Neil.”

“Andrew!”

“I’m not going to name the cat.”

“Then I’ll just have to. You know what? King Fluffkins and I are disowning you and starting our own family.”

“You’re a ghost. You can’t start a family because you’re dead. And its name is _not_ King Fluffkins.”

“Sorry, you’ll have to speak with our lawyer should you feel the need to communicate with us. We’re no longer legally able to correspond with you. Come on, King, let’s get out of here.”

“Mrow!”

* * *

“I want to try something,” Neil says. “Can I… help you?”

“Help me how,” Andrew asks flatly. Neil’s not terrible company, but other than his presence, Andrew has no idea what sort of assistance a dead spirit can provide.

“Okay, so, first of all, you can’t be mad.”

Andrew narrows his eyes in the general direction of Neil’s voice. “You’re not starting off well.”

“And you’re not encouraging!” Neil says, something nervous stringing through the words. “So lately I’ve been able to… uh. Feel what you’re feeling?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Like, when you’re hungry, it almost aches in my stomach, too. Or whatever passes for a stomach in the afterlife. I’ve never needed to eat before you, so I figure you’re the reason why it’s happening now.”

And that’s... interesting. Andrew turns that knowledge over in his head. “What was the longest anyone managed to live here for?”

“Since I died?” Neil asks, before thinking about it. “Probably about a week or so before I scared them off.”

Andrew moved in nearly four months ago. There’s definitely something happening here, something relating to Neil’s energy and ability to manifest for longer periods of time, and it has to do with Andrew.

“You’re siphoning your power off me,” he says, testing out the theory aloud.

“Oh,” Neil says. “You’re only just figuring that out? I’ve known since you first heard me talk. I don’t think it’s harmful to you, at least. I’m only borrowing your energy; nothing you can’t regenerate when you rest.”

Stranger and stranger. Andrew supposes now’s as good a time as ever to be shocked and surprised about how things have turned out, but he can’t quite muster the energy.

 _“Anyway,”_ Neil says pointedly, “I was going somewhere with this. I can feel when you’re hungry, but I can also feel… more.”

More like _what,_ Andrew almost asks, but bites his tongue. There’s a prickle of uneasiness that runs through him — he thinks he can predict where this is going.

“And lately you’ve been superhornyandit’slikeafeedbackloopmaking _me_ horny,” Neil says, words so fast they come out a garbled mess. It takes a moment for Andrew to parse the words out, and when he does, he abruptly stands up.

“I’m leaving,” he says unnecessarily. There’s no need to announce his departure when he’s in his own fucking home.

“Andrew,” Neil says. Though he’s not visible right now, Andrew can imagine the pout he’s making. “Let me help you.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious,” Neil says honestly. “And it feels like something building. I want to know what it’s like when that overflows.”

Andrew grits his teeth so hard his whole skull throbs with the impact. He feels nothing but loathing for the briefest of moments, that he could be so identifiable and _known._ It’s quickly overcome, though, by the promise of Neil’s words.

He turns on his heel and heads toward his room, knowing instinctively that Neil’s following.

“I don’t think I can touch you,” Neil muses as they breach the threshold of the bedroom. “It’d sap my energy too much.”

“That’s fine,” Andrew says, a heartbeat too quickly. He doesn’t _want_ anyone touching him. 

Neil hums. “I’ve also never done anything like this before.”

“What, used your apparent ghost empath abilities to get someone off?”

“Sex in general,” he responds, not rising to the half-nervous barb Andrew had thrown at him. “My father — well. I died before such a thing would have been possible, but I never found myself interested in it, anyway. Not until you, at least.”

 _Not until you, at least._ It’s not even a particularly sexy statement, so there’s no reason for heat to flood Andrew’s veins the way it does.

“Don’t look at me,” Andrew says. He marches over toward the bed, body a taut, unbending line, and jerks his pants down just enough to free himself before settling onto the mattress. “Talk to me, feel whatever you do, but don’t look at me or try to touch me.”

Neil acquiesces easily. Andrew doesn’t know exactly what he perceives when he’s this intangible, just a bodiless voice and a static presence in a room, but he trusts that Neil will respect his boundaries.

And isn’t that fucked?

“I’d like to touch you,” Neil starts off, quiet. There’s something reverent in his voice, like he actually means it. Andrew slides his boxers down until the elastic hugs the curve of his asscheeks and wraps a warm hand around himself.

“Where?”

It’s — different, imagining someone touching him. There’s no tenseness, no waiting for the unbearable impact of someone else’s skin against his own. Andrew finds that he doesn’t mind the fantasy of it at all, though.

“God, everywhere.” Neil lets out a sigh. “I’d love to run my hands down your arms, to feel that muscle against my palms.”

Andrew grunts quietly as his hand speeds up. It’s dry, and his palms drag against the taut skin of his cock in a way that’s not exactly unpleasant. Still, the slickness of lube would be better.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Andrew says slowly. “I want. To touch your face. To feel your jawline beneath my fingertips.”

“Oh, Andrew,” Neil murmurs. “You could touch me anywhere you want. What I wouldn’t give to have your hand wrapped around my cock instead of your own right now.”

Fuck. Neil’s — not _great_ at this, but he sounds honest, and the heat curling in Andrew’s stomach is the realist thing he’s ever felt. 

“More,” he says, breath hitching slightly as he twists his hand and the vein underneath his head throbs.

“I’d do anything you asked,” Neil says. “Let you fuck my mouth until I gagged for it. Spread me open with those thick, blunt fingers, until all I could think about was your dick inside of me. I’ve been doing a lot of imagining lately, Andrew, when you make me feel like this: pent-up and _wanting._ ”

If Neil keeps this up, Andrew isn’t going to last. He withdraws his hand, digging his fingers into the flesh of his thighs to feel the sharp bite of pain that will drag him away from the edge. He’s so hard he can’t bear it, and they’ve just gotten started.

He closes his eyes, and focuses on breathing.

Neil gives him a heartbeat, and then two, to recover. “I think I’d like a little bit of pain,” he continues. “Nothing unbearable; I had enough of that when I was alive. But your teeth closing over my neck, or the scratch of your fingernails on my back as we rutted against each other… Yeah. I’d want you to make it hurt just right, Andrew. You’d make it perfect for me.”

“Neil,” Andrew grits out, and it’s impossible _not_ to touch himself with Neil spouting shit like that. He curls in on himself, body a curve in the shape of a lone parenthesis, and strips his cock with such ferocity that he’s very nearly surprised by it.

He hasn’t been this worked up in ages.

Andrew revels in the warmth suffusing through him for a moment. “I know you can feel this,” he says. “Let me hear your pleasure, Neil.”

And it’s like the cork of a champagne bottle flying off: Neil lets out a gasp, startlingly loud in the quiet of the room, and says, “Fuck, Andrew, it feels so good. You’re close, I can tell. What are you thinking about? What brings you right to the edge?”

“You,” he says without thinking, and it’s an admission and a confession and more than Andrew would ever admit to if he were thinking with anything but his dick right now. The control he’s lauded in the past, pinning others to walls and forcing their hands away from his own body, is slipping, and in its wake all that’s left is the crystal-clear sound of Neil moaning and the building pressure in his gut.

“I’d give anything just to be the one to bring you over the edge,” Neil says. “Make yourself come. I want to see it, _feel_ it.”

And Andrew’s not one for obedience, but he listens, spilling over his own hand 

* * *

Well.

Andrew’s roommate is a ghost. They are also, apparently, fucking. He doesn’t know how this has become his life, after decades of fighting tooth and nail to rip out even a semblance of normalcy in the cosmic joke that is his life, but.

Neil helps.

Andrew’s not naive enough to believe that the ghost he stumbled into living with is some sort of magical fix-all. Supernatural though he may be, Neil still has a great many secrets he hasn’t shared with Andrew, and Andrew has a great many of his own that will never be spoken aloud. 

But they’ve both made it here — at least mostly — and even if it’s unexplainable, even if it’s impossible, Andrew thinks he doesn’t mind adding this to his vast repertoire of secrets.

It’s certainly one of the more fun ones.

* * *

Andrew wakes up with his cock throbbing and Neil’s voice soft in his ear. He’s not touching Andrew, never oversteps the line they’ve both drawn, but soft and sleep-rumpled, Andrew almost wishes he _could_ feel Neil.

“Good morning,” Neil says, amused. “I’ve been sitting here for the past hour feeding off of your emotions, and god, you’re cruel.”

“What is that supposed to mean,” Andrew says, grateful that Neil can’t smell his awful morning breath.

“Well, it’s really rude to leave someone wanting for so long. I think you deserve some punishment.”

Andrew’s cock twitches at that. Traitor.

“Mm,” he says noncommittally, turning over on the bed until his length presses into the softness of the mattress. He gives one experimental thrust, as much a test for himself as it is for Neil.

“Knock it off,” Neil says, and though there’s still that amused undercurrent present, now there’s something else threading through his words, something commanding. Andrew finds himself intrigued instead of off-put, and Neil can clearly feel it, because he says, boldly, “You don’t get to come today.”

“Since when did you grow a spine,” Andrew says, lifting an eyebrow. “You don’t even have the body for it.”

“You’ve left me wanting, and now I’m a new man.” Neil pauses for a moment, and then asks, quietly, “Is this alright? I want to try something.”

There’s a tightness in Andrew’s chest that bubbles up uncomfortably at the question, and it’s probably just indigestion, but he still takes a second to breathe through the pain before answering. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” Neil says, and then that steel from before sharpens his words again. “Every time I tell you to do something, I want you to do it.”

Andrew thinks he ought to hesitate, to re-evaluate. If it were anyone else, he would. But it’s Neil, and he knows Neil.

“What first?”

“You don’t need to take your shirt off,” Neil says, and that weird indigestion-chest-tightness feeling returns. “But I want you to touch your chest. Pretend it’s my hands.”

Andrew carefully rolls over onto his back before sliding a hand underneath the threadbare shirt he’d worn to bed.

“Good,” Neil purrs. “Have you ever touched your nipples before?”

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s the truth, but it had never been anything to write home about, just a fumbling teenager trying to find the best way to get off quickly in between guard shifts at juvie.

“Brush against one — lightly.”

Andrew does, and maybe it’s the fact that he’d already been hard when he woke up, or that Neil’s the one telling him — directing him — to do it, but as his fingers hit the raised nub, he can’t help but shiver in response to the stimulation.

“Oh,” Neil says, very nearly moaning out the word. “That feels nice. Do it harder. Pinch yourself, Andrew.”

Andrew feels too-hot and kicks off the blankets from around his waist. He feels vulnerable, but not in a dangerous way, because he knows Neil’s here to catch him if he falls. The callous-rough pads of his fingers drag deliciously over his nipple, and the sharp bite of pain when he pinches it between his thumb and forefinger sends a sharp throb all the way down his dick.

“What else?” Andrew asks, voice rasping over the words.

“Your other hand,” Neil says. “Stick your fingers in your mouth.”

It’s so easy — almost _too_ easy — to comply. Andrew’s struck with the vision of his dream, Neil pressed up against a wall while Andrew sucked him down to the root, and he pretends the two fingers shoved into his mouth are Neil’s dick instead of his own appendages. His tongue laves over the digits, soaking them with his own spit, and he considers, for the briefest heartbeat, what it'd be like if Neil commanded him to fuck himself with those fingers right now.

Neil inhales sharply. “Oh, shit. You look so good, so needy for me. Tell me how it feels to play with your nipples while your fingers are slick with your own spit, Andrew. Use your words.”

He tries, but between the jolt of pleasure as he touches himself and the heavy weight of his dick against his leg, hard and wanting, it’s difficult to focus. “Good,” he says, which is pathetic and a _vast_ understatement. “Pretending it’s — you. Touching me. Making me feel this way.”

“You’re doing so well,” Neil praises. “Are you close?”

“Need to touch myself,” Andrew hisses from between clenched teeth. He arches his spine at the mere thought of it, and hopes Neil’s next demand involves jerking himself off to completion.

“Soon,” says Neil. “But not yet. Keep touching your nipples.”

This is a game Andrew never knew he would enjoy playing. He could disobey Neil, of course. There would be no tangible consequences if he forewent his nipples, now puffy and swollen with attention — and fucked into his own hand. But there’s something tempting about obeying Neil’s rules, about knowing he feels the same satisfaction that Andrew does. 

His nipples hurt now, unused to this kind of frequent contact, but it’s a mild pain, akin to when King — the _cat_ — scratches him, or he bites his lip to rawness. It’s bearable, and in this context, something _good._ His spit has dried, though, fingers no longer slick with saliva, and he finds himself missing the sensation.

“Okay,” Neil says. “You’ve listened to me so perfectly. Touch yourself.”

Andrew’s louder than he ever remembers being when he finally wraps his hand around himself. A moan tears out of him, unbidden, and he writhes against the bedsheets. It won’t take long at all to come, not with Neil’s undivided attention on him and the still-present sting of his nipples from pinching and pulling at them.

He feels himself growing ever-closer to the edge, heartbeat so loud he can feel blood pounding in his skull as he jerks himself off.

“Stop,” Neil says, and it’s a sharp, demanding word. Andrew drops his hand instantly, too caught up in the rush of near-orgasm endorphins to do much else but listen. His body fairly sings with how close he is, and his thoughts are too hazy to recognize what’s happening until the bedroom door swings open and Sir trots in with a pitiful meow.

“Now go make some breakfast or something,” Neil says, and his voice is fading out, a sure sign that he needs to steal some of Andrew’s energy before he can reappear. “And I was serious: no coming.”

Andrew lies in bed, seething, for far longer than is probably appropriate. He’s not sure how, not yet, but Neil will pay for this.

**Author's Note:**

> "andrew exploring his sexuality with a ghost that can't phsyically touch him" sure is a thing i'm advocating from now on
> 
> please come shitpost with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/wyverning)


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